Shen to attend National Academy of Science symposium

By Cheryl Jones
University News Service
July 18, 2007

Jian Shen, associate professor for mathematics at Texas State University-San Marcos, has been invited to attend the National Academy of Sciences’ 19^th Annual symposium. The Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium will be held in November where approximately 100 researchers from across the nation will be flown to California to meet.

Participants are selected for invitation based on their field, institution and gender.

“We try to balance the make-up of the audience, to insure that we get the broadest representation of fields and institutions and hopefully get the greatest interaction across the variety of fields,” said program director Edward Patte.

“Since only a very small portion of these 100 attendees are mathematicians, it's a great honor for me to be recognized by NAS in this way,” said Shen.

The Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium series brings scientists together to communicate, share ideas on a range of topics and have access to colleagues as they progress in careers. Shen will have the opportunity to participate in eight two-hour sessions.

“We purposely try to get scientists whose research is not directly related to the program topics to increase the interaction and to get everyone to approach their research with a fresh view,” said Patte.

The National Academy of Sciences is an honor society for research scholars that dedicate themselves to furthering science. Their web page says that they serve to, “investigate, examine, experiment and report upon any subject of science or art whenever called upon to do so by any department of the government.”